


mistress

by ndnickerson



Category: Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Betrayal, Desire, F/M, Freedom, Master/Slave, Non-Sexual Slavery, Partners to Lovers, Power Dynamics, Revenge, past assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:28:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2768135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ned has exactly one goal, and he won't let anyone interfere with it. Then he meets her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mistress

He stands in the middle of the group, head bowed, lips chapped, sun blazing on the back of his neck and down his spine. He's pulled against the chains on his wrists and ankles so hard that they are ringed in crusted blood, and the skin stings and bruises but he can barely feel it.

He's nothing. After all he built and all he achieved, he's nothing now. Everything is undone. All that has kept him alive to now is the thought of finding the bastard who betrayed him and his men into the hands of their enemies. Nothing exists beyond it. His men deserve to be avenged.

But no matter what, he can never change it. He can never go back and bring them back to life.

Before the auction he feels hands on him, measuring the girth of his well-muscled upper arms and thighs, prodding his firm stomach, sifting through his hair. He doesn't look up. He doesn't care. Whoever buys him won't have him long. He doesn't care what punishment overtakes him. He will escape and have his revenge. Everything else is out of his hands. No soldier will ever trust him again—and he will never trust himself. He should have _known_ —

At the trader's guttural cry the line lurches forward and Ned along with it. Having the chains off will, at least, bring him a step closer to his goal. Once his are taken off, he doesn't dare move. He's seen the market in swift, calculating glances, and the trader has little patience for anything interfering with his profit.

He'll score a nice price, tapped for backbreaking work in the mines or the fields. He'll find a place and slip away.

The voices calling out prices for him once he's on the block feel like physical lashes against his burning skin, but he keeps his gaze down. If they see only subjugation and mild obedience in him, they will relax their guard. He only raises his head once, when the trader grabs him roughly by the chin and jerks his head up—and he scans the crowd. Many of them are robed against the heat, eyes glittering. Only one veiled woman is in the crowd, and the robes around the figure are so voluminous that he isn't even sure. The figure beside that one is the next to bid, increasing the current price by half again.

That man is the one who wins him, and Ned risks another glance up to see him approaching with the veiled figure. The trader's own slave takes his money and Ned expects another set of chains, but the man just gestures for Ned to follow him. After he holds a murmured conversation with the veiled figure, he stops in a small hut near some stables. The healer inside inspects his wrists and ankles and a gash in his back, and dresses his wounds with strips of cloth soaked in soothing balm. Ned doesn't relax, he can't, but an insistent knot in his stomach loosens a little.

Their destination, he discovers half a day later, is not a mine or field or project, but a large dwelling big enough to be a palace, on a hill and defended by guards. Perhaps it is a stop along the way; he can take nothing for granted now.

His new owner makes an obscure sign to the groom who greets them and puts away their mounts. Ned follows the rest of the entourage inside, feeling eyes on him, keeping his face blank.

"You understand me?"

His averted gaze will be seen as deference, and he nods.

"Your name?"

Ned's tongue is thick in his mouth. Other than the scarce provisions given by the trader, his only food for the past four days has been his rage; he was given water on the trip but he is bone-weary, exhausted. With every day that passes he is that much farther from finding his betrayer, but he is unsure of where he is or how to start. He has no resources and will need to steal anything required.

He looks up and into the man's eyes. In their house they take off the protective scarves and robes, and the man standing before him has hair just beginning to turn gray, and keen, intelligent eyes. "Ned," he replies.

Then the figure beside him steps forward, and she is young; unveiled, shining reddish-gold hair is plaited down her back, and her dark-blue eyes sparkle like sapphires. Ned's new owner has the dusky skin of a native; the girl—his bride? his daughter?—is paler. All that mars her otherwise beautiful face is a healed scar near her left ear.

Ned only realizes he's staring when the man says, "Ned. You are hers. And if you lay a finger on her without her consent, once she's done with you, if anything is left—I will cut off your hands."

Then he strides away, leaving Ned with the woman whose name he does not yet know. A servant announces that the meal has been prepared, and he is ushered to that room. He cringes in anticipation of another set of chains, but no one treats him like a slave, ordering him to the kitchens or the grounds. He is seated at a table near the small one set for his master and the woman, and he eats everything set before him, swiftly and without comment: a generous portion of stew flavored with goat meat, two loaves of a flat, dense bread, mugs of cool clear water.

After, he's taken to a room, given a clean outfit and a basin to wash off the grit of travel. Then he's summoned again, and though he's dead on his feet, though he's still bewildered, he's on guard as he walks into the chamber and finds _her_ there, and realizes they are alone. No chaperones or observers.

His owner must trust him—or the woman's ability to defend herself.

She has her arms crossed and her eyes are twinkling; when she speaks, her words are clear, her tone low and almost musical. "You have been hired as my companion," she says. "In some situations I need a male face—a sponsor. My father's responsibilities—" So the man is her father, Ned realizes. "He can't be with me all the time. What he told you is true. Treat me with respect and obey me, and your life will be easy—and, once our partnership is over, you will be released. Treat me with disrespect and you will regret it."

"How long will this partnership be?"

She tilts her head. "I cannot say yet," she says. "If you prove unsuitable to the task, my father will likely put you to work in the house or in his business until he feels you have earned your price. If we work well together..." She makes a shrugging gesture.

It seems easy. If he shows himself to be a fool who cannot serve as an effective companion, he will be brought here, to this place of ease and comfort, where he will find a way back and have his revenge. All he must do is disappoint her. He will steal his freedom if he must.

 _And for what?_ his exhaustion whispers.

"Do you accept?"

Her brow is furrowed when he meets her blue eyes again, and he nods without thinking. "Yes, mistress."

She shakes her head. "You require time to heal and regain your strength. I hoped to start tomorrow—"

"We may. I will try to be as you require."

But she beckons a servant and together they escort him back to his room; she checks his wrists and ankles and changes his bandages, laying the back of her hand against his forehead and his temple, and he remembers just how long it has been since he has felt the touch of a woman.

He can touch any other, but not her.

\--

She speaks his language, the language of her mother.

He hates that he _respects_ her. He hates that he's in awe of her, that he is fascinated by her. On their first trip, she tracks down a slave trader who has stolen a trio of sisters for another man whose tastes aren't so prosaic. She finds out where they are, and when she and Ned break in, she makes such quick work of the shackles that Ned's stomach twists in envy. Had she been nearby, on his side, he doesn't think he would ever have found himself enslaved.

She has to trust him, because during their second trip he poses as her husband and they pursue a man who has stolen a pair of priceless artifacts. Ned dresses and acts the part, trying not to think about the fact that if the circumstances had been different, it wouldn't _be_ an act. During that trip he learns about her mother but not the scar on her cheek, and he doesn't touch her, but when he settles in the tent beside hers and considers how he could disappear into the night, he finds her name is on his lips, like a memory of home he lost long ago.

_Nancy._

He's stopped wanting or trying to disappoint her. He wants to track down the man responsible for his desolation, but being her companion, her protector, is too seductive.

Once he has proven himself, he is allowed a short, wickedly sharp dagger, and he makes the most of it one night when a villain tries to harm his "bride." He's able to wound the man a few times before Nancy approaches, her own blade drawn, and orders him away with cold disdain.

Had she been by his side, second in command, his men would never have died.

He dreams of her name and knows that she will never feel as he does, but maybe she will help him find the man who did this to him.

\--

She agrees, calling it payment for his services; once they finally track him down, Nancy is the one who approaches him, because he will suspect nothing strange in the attention of a beautiful, mysterious woman, would never dream that Ned is waiting for him. She draws Ned's betrayer to a rendezvous outside the town, and when the coward sees Ned waiting, he tries to bolt—but Nancy is waiting, too. She knows what Ned lost, and when it's done he disposes of the remains and finds her outside, arms crossed, gazing up at the stars.

He has what he has wanted for so long that he can remember nothing else, and he is lost, purposeless. Then she looks over at him, speaking in his native tongue.

"Is it better, now?"

He does not respond, and after a moment she tips her head back again, gazing up at the sky.

He has no desire to lose his hands. But he is beginning to think that his attentions might not be unwelcome.

\--

It is another night, glittering with stars, cold and so still that her bones vibrate with need. She dismisses her maid and clasps her arms around her knees, waiting for the trembling to pass, willing it to. When she can wait no longer, she pushes herself up and walks to the flap of her tent, then glances over at Ned's.

She prays that it will be dark. Instead, she picks out the flickering beyond the canvas.

In another ten minutes, the struggle is ended. She approaches his tent without bothering to disguise her steps, and he is on his cot when she slides back the flap. He's studying sheets of parchment. There is so much about him she doesn't know.

But there is so much about him she does.

"Walk with me," she says, tempering her words so it sounds like less of a command. After a beat he nods, and she allows him space to dress.

They walk together for a moment before she speaks again. "The man who gave me this scar caught me taking what had never been his," she says. "He had stolen a young woman from her fiancé."

"I would have made sure he could not harm you."

She nods. "Which is why you are here now."

Their steps slow; they have not touched, but she can almost imagine the heat of his skin. "What will you do now?" she murmurs. "Now that he's gone. Now that you know how to leave."

"Has my service been unsatisfactory?"

"Never."

"And you could keep me here," he says, and his voice is almost casual. "You know what happened in the desert."

"If I have to keep you that way, I don't deserve to have you."

"Do you wish to have me?"

He has done everything but speak the words; it is all as perfectly innocent as a knife's edge. She searches his eyes and oh, there is an ache in her chest, such an ache.

"As a partner, I could have none better."

"But we are not partners." She has seen his eyes so tender; in the silver moonlight, they cannot, have not forgotten themselves and what they are. Mistress and servant. Warrior and protector.

She can keep him, but if she turns the key, he will be lost to her.

"I release you." She sighs.

"You cannot."

"My father gave you to me, and I release you. I release you to do as you wish. If you wish to stay with me, it will be as my partner. If you wish to leave, I will not stop you."

"I have nothing without you."

"Surely saving my life as you have is worth some consideration."

He moves closer to her. "I owed you nothing less. We are even."

"We could never be."

"We will never be," he says, moving so close to her that he is staring directly into her eyes, so close she can feel his breath on her skin. "Mistress."

"I have released you."

He shakes his head. "Mistress," he whispers, and his fingers brush hers, his lips brush her cheek. "Do with me as you will. I have nothing beyond you."

She closes her eyes, trembling a little, before she takes his hand and leads him back to her tent. He touches her with silent reverence, rough palms caressing smooth shoulders, tracing the line of her hips. When he takes her they both sigh, savoring a moment they will never have again, that first strange, sweet shock of their first joining. Then he moves, and she is the devotee now, and she is powerless to him.

Afterward she is naked and breathless and glowing, and he is stroking one firm nipple with his calloused thumb, leaning down to trail soft kisses against her pale skin. "I ask one thing of you, mistress," he breathes.

"Oh?"

"That I may keep my hands."

"When they are so skillful..." She reaches for one and kisses his palm. "Your wish is my command. Master."

Then he rolls over and gazes up into her eyes as she sprawls over him, and he is a hard man, a haunted one, but his pain is born of love, and it is love she sees in him now.

He touches her lips. "Partner."

She kisses his thumb. "Partner."


End file.
